Mind, Brain, Body, and Behavior

DIRECTORS’ FOREWORD ix

Directors’ Foreword

To appreciate the groundbreaking discoveries we have made in recent
years in the field of neuroscience–from the mapping of human disease
genes to sophisticated imaging studies of the brain and insightful
investigations of cognition and behavior–we must first understand the
context of what came before, in the last half century. Fifty years ago we
had only just discovered the structure of DNA. Now we can analyze
the expression of thousands of genes in an afternoon.
Our forebears laid the vital groundwork needed to make progress
against neurological and mental disorders. A large portion of that foun­
dation was built in the intramural laboratories at the National Insti­
tutes of Health (NIH)–by the pioneering scientists who founded and
staffed the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and the National
Institute of Neurological Diseases and Blindness (NINDB, predecessor
of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke).
We now have powerful tools and methods at our disposal thanks to
the efforts of these early neuroscientists, who fueled the engine of discov­
ery and changed the nature of the scientific questions that can be asked
today. Without them, we would not have the remarkable breakthroughs
in genomics, imaging, and many other areas that help us bring novel treat­
ments to the millions of Americans who so desperately need them.
The two institutes were joined early, almost from the inception of
the NIH. Formerly the PHS’s Division of Mental Hygiene, the NIMH
was established as part of the NIH in 1949. Congress established the
NINDB in 1950, but without the funds it needed, at first, to establish
its own research program. The first director of the NINDB had to rely
on the generosity of the first director of the NIMH, and its scientific
director–Seymour S. Kety. Kety hired researchers for both institutes on